Crimean Gothic
Are we still agreed that this words needs some cognates listed? I think so, at least. It seems to be definitely related to *sweltanan.
- swaltaz seems like the most likely origin, because it fits with how verbal nouns of strong verbs were usually formed in Proto-Germanic. Can you find any other descendants of it?
I think sult is the West Norse form, Modern Swedish has svält. It's also possible that it's not a direct descendant of the original nominal form, but and independent creation from the verb, I guess. Thank you for your reply, anyway.
@Eiríkr: I would assume English svelt is just another spelling of svelte, which seems to have a different origin.
@Wakuran: Modern Swedish does have svält (Old Swedish svælter), which is indeed probably influenced by the verb form svälta (Old Swedish svælta); but older Swedish also has sylt (Old Swedish sulter, sylt and sylter) and Danish has sult. I have now discovered, however, that Swedish also has an obsolete svalt (Old Swedish svalter), which does seem to be < *swaltaz.